The crowed Embarcadero station at its peak time on February 1st, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. BART is planning on spending $650 million-plus to expand San Francisco's Embarcadero and Montgomery Street station platforms, knocking out the walls behind the trains and drilling new tunnels behind with access to the street.

Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

The crowed Embarcadero station at its peak time on February 1st,...

Image 2 of 6

People wait for BART at the Embarcadero station on February 1st, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. BART is planning on spending $650 million-plus to expand San Francisco's Embarcadero and Montgomery Street station platforms, knocking out the walls behind the trains and drilling new tunnels behind with access to the street. Embarcadero is very crowed during its peak time.

Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

People wait for BART at the Embarcadero station on February 1st,...

Image 3 of 6

A woman waits for BART at the Embarcadero station on February 1st, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. BART is planning on spending $650 million-plus to expand San Francisco's Embarcadero and Montgomery Street station platforms, knocking out the walls behind the trains and drilling new tunnels behind with access to the street. Embarcadero is very crowed during its peak time.

Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

A woman waits for BART at the Embarcadero station on February 1st,...

Image 4 of 6

People wait for BART at the Embarcadero station on February 1st, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. BART is planning on spending $650 million-plus to expand San Francisco's Embarcadero and Montgomery Street station platforms, knocking out the walls behind the trains and drilling new tunnels behind with access to the street. Embarcadero is very crowed during its peak time.

Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

People wait for BART at the Embarcadero station on February 1st,...

Image 5 of 6

People wait for BART at the Embarcadero station on February 1st, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. BART is planning on spending $650 million-plus to expand San Francisco's Embarcadero and Montgomery Street station platforms, knocking out the walls behind the trains and drilling new tunnels behind with access to the street. Embarcadero is very crowed during its peak time.

Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

People wait for BART at the Embarcadero station on February 1st,...

Image 6 of 6

The crowed Embarcadero station at its peak time on February 1st, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. BART is planning on spending $650 million-plus to expand San Francisco's Embarcadero and Montgomery Street station platforms, knocking out the walls behind the trains and drilling new tunnels behind with access to the street.

BART has fallen victim to its success. With a record number of passengers riding BART daily - an average of 393,000 per weekday - the board of directors has been looking at ways to increase the system's capacity. As Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross reported this week, the Transbay Tube can only handle a maximum of 24 trains per hour. BART General Manager Grace Crunican wants to increase the route's capacity so that it can accommodate 30 trains per hour, or a train every two minutes.

In order to speed the system up, BART wants to reconfigure the Embarcadero and Montgomery Street stations, which as the two highest-traffic stations create gridlock at rush hour. The solution: Rehab the stations so passengers can get onto cars while other passengers get off. Staff have put together a "saddlebag" design that would allow commuters at the Embarcadero station to enter a train from one platform, while others exit on the other side. The Montgomery station would use that design for the eastbound commute only.

The price tag for the redesign is expected to hit $900 million. That's a big chunk of change, but one that would allow the stations to remain open during construction.

How to get the public on board? Everyone wants to see BART run better and faster.

It would be nice to believe that BART can complete such an ambitious project in time, close to budget and having thought of all the contingencies so the effort makes the system run better. But there's this escalator problem; some of the system's street escalators seem perpetually out of order. Even after repair personnel fix them, they are subject to breaking down again because during off hours, station agents cannot lock downtown entrances to prevent homeless people from using escalators as campsites and bathrooms. The solution would be to erect canopies at those stations. At present, BART staff members are working on a prototype.

Spokeswoman Alicia Trost assures us that the BART board and staff very much want to work with San Francisco to agree on a plan to protect BART entrances. City Hall should step up to the plate. At a Thursday board meeting, director Robert Raburn acknowledged the need to prioritize covers so that they don't end up throwing "good money after bad."

Addressing a problem is the beginning to fixing it. But there's nothing like actually fixing it, and preventing more dysfunction and disrepair.